Gallifrey - Day Three

Day three began the way day two ended, with me on the floor passed out. I was awoken sometime after 7am when Angelie tripped over me. Apparently that caused a bit of a stir because she and Tim thought I had brought someone back to the room to sleep it off before they realized it was me sleeping it off. With others awake and the sun shining I was able to navigate the stuff on the my bed to find a patch for me to sleep on. Note I still didn't have it in me to actually clear anything off.

They went to breakfast with an old college friend and I slept a bit more. I finally dragged myself out of bed when the allure of food was too much to ignore. Due to the lateness of when I finally started to move I ended up missing the one on one with Sophie. I'm kind of sad, but then again I needed to have some solids pass through my lips for the first time in over 24 hours. A shower and a trip to Denny's for Moons over my Hammy later I was feeling slightly human again.

I caught a tad of the panel on whether there's too much Who. Sadly being in one of the side rooms meant that it was packed and very hard to hear what anyone was saying since no one was mic'ed. I stayed for a bit and then started in earnest to put a live Time Team together.

It all really started Thursday night when we introduced ourselves to Paul Cornell. If you read his blog on a regular basis you'd have seen that he said he would love to for anyone that read the blog and was going to the convention to say 'hi' and mention his blog. After helping to purchase a round of lagers for him, Steven Moffat and Simon Guerrier I did just that, saying I read his blog and thanked him for pimping this one. When he asked which one and I mentioned the blog's name that opened the door for some conversation. During the conversation Tim mentioned an email that I had sent a few months ago saying wouldn't it be fun if maybe on the last day we did a Time Team from the con, getting together anyone that actually read the blog if we found them to hang out with us. Somehow this turned into us asking Paul if he would like to take part in something if we could put it together. He was on board if we could make it work schedule wise and then we were off to the races. Then he mentions how we should ask Simon and Lisa as well.

I completed the Simon half of that later Thursday evening when I did the same conversation starting technique of mentioning his blog and thanking him for pimping this one. Conversation pretty much went the same as before, this time me being able to say that Paul was on board for a live Time Team, would he. At this point I decided we should do The Lost Museum so in theory all three would have something to talk about.

Friday had come and gone without being able to meet and talk with Lisa since I had to dash off to the hockey game. From talking with Paul I knew that Saturday night was probably gonna be the best bet for all parties involved. So I left the panel on Too Much Who? and went in search of Shaun Lyon, hoping for some help. This is basically how that conversation went:

Me: Hey, I don't know if you've heard of us or not, but I run a blog called the Audio Time Team where we're slowly going through the Big Finish catalog.

Shaun: Yeah, I've seen the posts on Outpost Gallifrey.

Me: Cool. I was wondering, what are the odds I could get a room to do a live one in? I've got Paul, Simon and possibly Lisa on board to join us.

Shaun: We're always looking for more fan panels. Drop me an email in 6 or 7 months when we start working on the programming.

Me: That's great. I'll do that. But I actually meant tonight.

Once I clarified that I didn't want to actively counter program against Ed and Jenny's wedding and that I wanted to do it during the 2 hour block in the evening where nothing besides the wedding was planned we were off the races.

I had the time frame and a place. Now I just needed to track all parties involved and see whether it worked for them or not. In between all this Tim and I managed to see Joel Hodgson and Josh Weinstein, formerly of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and now part of Cinematic Titanic. It had been rumored as early as Thursday that Joel and Trace Beaulieu might show up. On Friday Joel's appearance had been confirmed. As with the Too Much Who panel we found the same problem with this panel. Tiny room, tons of people, and the room next door showing some kind of video with the volume turned up to eleven. Add to this Joel being a soft spoken kind of person and it was a losing proposition for us being in the back to really hear anything. We stayed for about 15 minutes and then slipped out of the room.

I made my way to the main room for the panel on Benny. Much fun was had as we learned the real reason Stephen Fewell got casted without an audition and that Simon is a fan of Withnail and I. Or at least of Ralph Brown from the movie. We also got to watch the guy who had blown the ending to The End of the World the day before offer his mea culpas for doing so. Afterwards I waited for Simon to leave the stage and find a free moment to explain that I had a room adn a time and was he still free.

After determining that he was still on I made mention how I hadn't had a chance to talk to Lisa as of that point. He said he could fix that right away to which Lisa must've overheard that because she turned around. She explained that she hated to love me and leave but that she had to dash off to an autograph session. She made it a point to actually find my name badge, read the name on it, and then say that she'd try to talk later. I said I understood and as she started to turn around I mentioned "Time Team". This got a look of recognition and an "Oh, then we definitely need to talk" response. I did my best West Wingwalk and talk as I quickly mentioned the plan for the evening and got her agreement to participate. I used the resulting autograph session to not only get my cd covers from The End of the World and The Final Amendment signed, but to also solidify her participation in the live Time Team.

Hopefully you've read the post on the Live Time Team so you know how those few hours went. And if you haven't read it, shame on you. Go! Read it now! I'll wait...

For me the rest of the evening was spent hanging out with more new friends, tickled pink that I had just spent serious quality time with Simon and Lisa, and then drinking with Paul and Rob Shearman. The highlight of that that portion being teaching Paul about QI fanfiction and hearing Rob exclaim, "It's apricotty" when taking a sip of a apricot hefeweizen.

I finally rolled into bed around 2am, the earliest I had seen my bed up to this point in the convention.

8 comments:

Sadly I had to enjoy said apricotty beer vicariously through you. I don't think I was cool enough to get that beer. I got the other one Handsome Timmy D was handing out. Still more tasty than the Pabst Genuine Draft.

Once I had nailed everything down I couldn't find you. When I finally did you were in line waiting to go into the fancier of the two restaurants for dinner with Caroline and some others. I didn't want to interrupt that as I was already messing with Lisa's dinner plans.

There's always next year. I seriously want to do it as a formal panel.

QI fanfiction is daftly brilliant for all of five minutes. Then you realize that 95% of it is bad slash and suddenly the brilliance wears off. After that it becomes a VW bug on fire on the side of the highway that you know you shouldn't watch, but you do. Then you go onto the next piece thinking that surely it can't top the previous one. Until you discover that that one's a Hummer on fire which puts the VW bug on fire to shame. Kind of sad and scary all at the same time.